Angelus Lacrima REWRITE
by Mitsukai Mizu Amaya
Summary: They laughed and cried together. She died and left him all alone. Spencer Reid has kept his reasons for joining the BAU a secret... until a case revolving around dead newborns hits a little close to home. Case!Fic, loosely Reid/OC
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** I do not own anything to do with the show, obviously. This is fanfic.

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Prologue

 _ **Happy Birthday**_

 _"Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good."_

 _\- Maya Angelou_

* * *

The first sign should have been the lack of signs. No notes, no cards, not even a present. After so long in the unit, after so many ambushes and parties and ridiculous hats, the total silence on this day should have tipped me off. But it didn't, and I let myself hope beyond hope that they'd simply... forgotten. For a blissful time, there were no happy birthdays, no presents, nothing. It lulled me into a false sense of security, so I jumped at the chance to watch Hank while Morgan and Savannah went out for date night. The fact that I had the day off at all should've been another red flag; it was in the middle of the week.

"SURPRISE!"

Now here I was, stuck between a grinning Garcia and a laughing Morgan. A _surprise party._ I had been surprised, alright. Surprised enough that my gun was out of it's holster before they even finished shouting 'SURPRISE!' Pulling a gun on your friends and coworkers probably wasn't the friendliest thing to do. And from the grins on Garcia and Morgan's faces, they were _never_ going to let me forget it.

"Birthday boy, you brought your sidearm to watch my kid?" Morgan shoved me. I flailed, to the laughter of all present, and glared at his grinning face.

"I just got out of the range since my qualifications are next week, and I know you're gun case code," I smoothed out my shirt, "Didn't want to be late."

From the playful look on my best friend's face, I was in for it now. But then, a flurry of movement out of the kitchen caught our attention. For a split second, I thought it was my savior, but no. It was just Emily, JJ, and Rossi, the former two with armfuls of presents and the latter with a colossal birthday cake. It was covered in candles, already lit, and Rossi dodged around Henry with a laugh before depositing it on the coffee table in front of me. JJ and Emily dumped presents on the floor to the right of Garcia. The unfortunate birthday boy - myself - was sandwiched between Morgan and Garcia on the couch. As my eyes scanned the room for the last time before falling to my doom, I saw everyone who was in on this. Morgan, Garcia, Emily, and JJ I could expect this from - and from their spouses and boyfriends - but the rest? Dr. Tara Lewis, Luke Alvez, Stephen Walker... people I barely knew. They'd only recently started working for the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit, and yet here they were. Grinning down at me, arms crossed, though a bit back from the festivities than the rest. Hotch and Jack were nowhere to be seen. Of course they weren't. As my eyes fell to that burning cake, I couldn't help the sigh. We would probably never see either of them again.

"Hey, don't look _too_ put out, Reid," Garcia nudged me - much gentler than Morgan - and leaned forward enough for me to see her smile, "We'd start thinkin' you didn't like us or something."

"Wh-what? Oh, oh right," I shook my head, "Sorry, no... I mean, you guys really, _really_ didn't need to do this."

"'Course we did," Morgan thumped my back, earning laughter when I nearly faceplanted right into the cake.

I shot him a glare, earning nothing more than that damn grin in it's place. Then the whole group, children included, busted into song. I bared it with as straight a face as I could, stifling a groan. I was blowing out the candles before they even finished the song, just to get them to shut up. But it only learned more laughter at my expense. Then the presents came. From Morgan and Savannah, a brand new Playstation 4 with an assortment of games from Garcia. Probably some plot to get me to play with Morgan and Garcia more; last year it was my computer, this year, a console. The rest got me an assortment of books, those from Rossi, JJ, and Emily ones I didn't have while half those from Lewis, Alvez, and Walker I did have (the other half were new; I couldn't blame them, it's not like they knew me well enough yet to know what I had).

Then Savannah spirited the cake away, enlisting help from Emily in cutting it up for everyone. Then, in simultaneous movements so in sync it was scary, Garcia and Morgan both rounded on me. I held JJ's present - _The Physics of Star Trek_ by Lawrence M. Krauss - defensively against my chest like armor, "What?"

"So, Reid... I know you remember the bet we made last week, when Garcia and I rounded you into some Call of Duty and you lost in the most spectacular way."

Oh no. He wasn't talking about...? And _this_ is why I tried never to get roped into gaming nights with those two. Of _course_ I remembered, this was _me_ they were talking about. I gulped, "... yes?"

"Alright, everybody!" I jumped when Morgan shouted, "Gather round! Doctor Spencer Reid here is gonna let us ask him ten questions! Whatever we want, no hold barred!"

I half leaped from my chair, "Ten?! The bet was for five!"

"I dunno, I think-"

"Five is fine!" Garcia shot him a look that was all smiles. Then, just as some of the tension melted from my back, she turned that look on me, "... unless you wanna try out that Playstation, double or nothing."

From the sneering look on _both_ their faces, that was just a bet even I, a Vegas native, would never want to make, "Uh... five is fine."

Soon, plates of cake and ice-cream were passed around and I found myself at the center of a group of eager children - the actual ones and my coworkers (in Morgan's case, former) - included. My palms grew warm and started to sweat, along with back of my neck. Prickling little hairs stood straight as - finally - Garcia spoke after rustling in her pocket, "So, Morgan and I made a list-" I leaned forward with a loud groan, burying my head in my hands. A _list_? I'd wondered why they hadn't just grilled me when I lost last week.

"Come on, boy wonder, they aren't that bad," Garcia chuckled, smoothing out the crumpled paper against her thigh, "Okay, number one - JJ, might wanna cover Henry's ears - are you a virgin?"

I sputtered, eyes wide as I rounded on the peppy blonde, not missing a giggling JJ clasping her hands over a squirming Henry's ears, " _Excuse me_?"

"You heard her, Reid," Morgan said.

"I thought you said they weren't that bad!"

"You should have seen the original list they had, Reid," Rossi said from somewhere behind me. I twisted on the couch to shoot him a glare, "You're welcome."

I could imagine. Between Garcia and Morgan and whatever their perverted little minds could possibly come up with... "I... I'm not answering that."

"Deal's a deal, Reid."

"But... what... I mean..."

"You _are,_ aren't you?" Morgan wrapped an arm around me shoulders, jerking me close enough I could feel his chest rumbling with laughter, "Ain't nothin' wrong with that, Reid. It'll happen someday, 'specially for someone as pretty boy as you."

I threw his arm off, cheeks warm as vasodilation occurred and blood flow was increased throughout my face. I focused on it, counting and naming off the muscles and blood vessels of the face to keep calm. Buccanator, orbicularis oris, procerus, levator labii superioris- "I know that look; ask the next question before we lose him to whatever he's got goin' on in that head of his."

"What is this, Make-Reid-Die-From-Embarrassment-Day?" I mumbled, head in my hands.

"Now, now, the rest aren't that bad," Garcia said, "Figured we'd start off with the funny one."

She passed the sheet over my head to Morgan, who read the next one. They were true to their word, though the answers led to much laughter at my expense. A rather short answer about my dating history prior to joining the BAU (answer: none), whether or not Lila was my first kiss (it was), then the third being a short question about my rather nerdy habits that somehow devolved into an impromptu lecture about the actual scientific accuracy of the original Star Trek.

"Okay, Reid, _enough_ about the physics of the warp drive," Now it was Morgan's turn to groan to the laughter of all. Good, at least I got some payback.

"Well, did you know-"

" _Reid_."

"Alright, boy wonder, one more," Garcia snatched the paper back from Morgan and cleared her throat noisily, "You could've done anything with that beautiful brain of yours. Cured cancer, engineered a colony on Mars..."

"What're you getting at?" My eyes narrowed.

"Well, why'd you join the FBI, and the BAU, of all things?" Garcia set that damned paper down, finally, next to the discarded present wrapping paper.

I blinked once, then twice, feeling a sense of cold in the tips of my fingers. A flash came to mind, an image courtesy of this memory of mine. The memory that forgot nothing, no images, no faces, no people from my past... "I... I, well, I wanted to help people."

"Oh come on, my man!" Morgan thumped my back again, "That ain't it! We've all got a story here; I may not be with the agency anymore, but still-"

White hair. A laughing girl, young. Brilliant red eyes. Red like the blood on the wall. _'Case has gone cold.'_ It said that in the newspapers. They showed her smiling in the newspapers, the T.V., talked about her during the Amber Alert. White female, age thirteen, missing and suffering from a host of illnesses, last seen at her home in-

"Reid?"

I leaped from Morgan's arm on my shoulder, shooting up as my voice spilled and crackled, "I... I... well, I just liked helping people. Thought saving them was the best way, you know?" You wanted to catch them, Reid. You wanted to catch people like them. Like those people who took her, like those that killed them... I slid back onto the couch, the cold inching up my wrists like skittering bugs, up my arms, my neck, constricting the vessels in my face and bleeding out the warmth from my previous blush.

"Yo, hey, Reid... man, you alright?" Morgan's arm was comforting now, draped across my shoulders and his voice lower.

I looked at the rest, seeing the jovial mood slowly leeching from all my friends. Even my godson, Henry, was looking up at his mother with such a look of confusion that I just... couldn't. I squared my shoulders and flashed a grin at the little boy, who gave me a smile of his own. At least he seemed immune to the 'Reid Effect'. I patted Morgan's hand where it rested on my shoulder, "Yeah, yeah, 'course. But it's just that. I mean, we catch bad guys and help their victims." I looked at each of my coworkers and friends in turn, hoping my expression and smile said that this was the end of this conversation, "Just... helping people, you know?"

That seemed the break the spell of ice that had settled over the room, and soon they were all right back to poking fun. I took the books and, with some help from JJ, organized them into neat piles with the rest of my things on the dining room table. While we did that, JJ and Savannah disappeared into the kitchen and soon the smells of popcorn joined the cake and ice-cream.

"What now? Movies?" I called as they brought in overflowing bowls of popcorn.

Morgan tossed something and it hit me square in the chest; I had to scramble to catch it. Spock stared up at me from the cover, along with others. The Wrath of Khan. I shot Morgan an amused look, "So this was the reason behind the Star Trek question?"

"Would've been halfway through the movie if you hadn't gone on that physics tirade," Morgan ruffled my hair, "Now budge up, genius."

I did, rolling my eyes as everyone took comfortable seats all around me. My friends, my family, passing around cake and popcorn. I smiled in spite of myself as Henry bounded up to insert the movie into Morgan's Playstation. Maybe birthdays weren't such a bad thing after all.

* * *

At the same time, in a place so far away, a young woman blew out the candles on a cupcake. All around her was blankets, pillows, fluff forming the gentle nest. Billowing curtains, lace trim, silk. All cushioning her, cushioning her child, in it's warm embrace. She looked up from the cupcake at the faces of the two in front of her. She focused on the Nurse. The Nurse was always kind and gentle, though she was new. The Nurse was kind to her children. But the others... no, the others were not. Never kind. Never kind to them...

"Are you going to eat it?" The one she thought of as Nurse sat down next to the woman. There was a strained smile on her lips, and the young woman knew why. Her eyes traveled, sliding down from the Nurse's tattered shirt to the fresh blood on her wrists, and the shackles and chains linking them to her feet. She could move, walk, take care of the young girl as they instructed, but no further.

"Yes, I..." her hands fell to the roundness of her abdomen. It was large, like all the others, and the feel of it brought a smile to her face. Maybe this one. Maybe this one she could keep, "My child likes sweets, I th..."

The words died on her lips as the mood shifted. She knew the mistake made the second he slid from the darkness surrounding the bed to stand before her. The young woman shrank back, arms wrapped protectively around her stomach. The comforting embrace of Nurse shielded her from the man's furious, hooded gaze. Always hooded whenever Nurse was in the room. Always hidden then, but never when Nurse was not. Never when Nurse was not.

"Take her away."

They came for the Nurse. She fought, kicking and punching as much as her weak, stick thin and malnourished form allowed. The young woman reached for her, choking back sobs, until Nurse was rested from the room. Then her arms fell, face calm and all emotion scrubbed clean, bright eyes gone dull as they settled on the man.

"They are not your child. This one is not worthy of being the angel's child," He stepped up to the edge, leaning forward enough to plant one knee down. The young woman didn't move. She knew what this meant, and the penalty for resistance. There was not point in the resistance.

"I know."

"I will have to punish you for the indiscretion."

"I know."

"But not tonight," The knee slid off the bed.

The young woman's jaw went slack, and she blinked once, "Not... not tonight?"

"No," The man slipped back into the darkness of the room, "Tonight, we celebrate, remember? For the first time in so long, we have a day to celebrate."

And he smiled, so she smiled. Because to disobey was to be punished. And to be punished, in such a state... she could never keep her child then. Because, even as the man told her they were not, they were her children. They were all her children.

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 **Author's Note:** Rewatching Criminal Minds leads to this :D


	2. Ghosts From The Past

**Disclaimer:** Don't own things, etc. etc.

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Chapter One

 **Ghosts From The Past**

 _"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."_

 _\- Friedrich Nietzsche_

* * *

Dark green vest over a nice, clean, crisp white button-up. Straight slacks, dark grey, concealing the gun Hotchner gave me years ago after my first shooting. It was in a holster not unlike his, but the slight added weight didn't help me look any less like a zombie. I knew I did, it wasn't like I ever hid my disgust with mornings. They were the most tiring part of the day, the hardest in general and at times the most difficult to get _right_. Because I needed to get everything right. Everything calm and in order as much as possible, to avoid the emotional jolts that led to relapse. I never had relapsed, never gone to seek out the needle, but there were times. Emily's 'death' and stint in witness protection, Hitch leaving... Maeve.

She was the worst. I never even got to touch her when she was alive.

But I pushed those thoughts aside, half stumbling like the undead for the communal coffee area. The coffee cup I always used was there, the pot was fresh and delightfully dark, with the rich aroma of sweet caffeine permeating the air. I drew it in, the mere smell shedding some of my exhaustion, until my eyes fell on the sugar container. It was empty. It was empty and the container was in the hands of Alvez. My eyes slid up to meet his, blinking once, before settling into a glare.

"Whoa, what happened to you?" He set the offending container down and picked up a stir stick, stirring the last of the sugar into his coffee, "Look like the dead there, Reid."

I sighed and turned away without a word, taking my unsweetened coffee to my desk. Breaking under the pressure of my own exhaustion, I sipped the cup, feeling goosebumps break out across my skin at the sheer bitterness of it. It really, really needed sugar but I really, really needed caffeine. I could feel Alvez's eyes on me, probably confused, but in my sleepiness I didn't really care. Definitely didn't help that my apartment neighbors have been keeping me up at all hours when I actually _was_ home with all the moving vans and packing.

"What's up with Reid?"

"Well, judging from that container, you took the last of the coffee sugar," Ah, JJ to the rescue, explaining was I was too tired to, "Reid both needs caffeine like the rest of us, but can't stand it without enough sugar to kill a diabetic."

I sipped more of the black coffee, shuddered, and called over the bullpen, "Actually, the two to four tablespoons I usually drink with my coffee is far below what it would take to reach toxic levels in a human, diabetes or no."

"Okay, Reid," I could _feel_ his eyes rolling. That was a common reaction to most of things I said to my coworkers, all in good jest. Usually. Even if they _did_ tell me to shut up quite often.

With the occasional sip of the disgusting coffee, I set about my morning duties, noticing with a wry grin that my stacks of reports had _somehow_ grown overnight. I didn't mind it so much, when the others slipped me the extra report or twelve, but on days when I didn't have my requisite caffeine in me yet (due to only being able to sip this black coffee), it _was_ a bit annoying. Yet the reports and geographic profiles requested from local PDs and other offices were soon tossed aside as Emily called out from the balcony near Hotch's office - her's now, I reminded myself - "Round-table room, everyone. We've got a case."

As the others finished their work, I just shunted my reports to the corner of my desk and slid from the chair. The bit of caffeine in me was beginning to work it's magic, and by the time I sauntered to the meeting room and plopped in the nearest chair, I was at least somewhat awake. JJ was the first one to call it the 'round table room', owing to the large, circular table that took up the center. Probably some 'King Arthur' joke, but without Hotch here, it fell kind of flat. Emily was trying, and doing a damn good job at that, but it just wasn't the same.

On the table was a single box, open to reveal a bunch of manila folders. Emily picked one out and opened it. I didn't miss her quick wince, "We were contacted by the Las Vegas field office to assist in this case." Emily set down the folder after snapping it shut. My ears perked up at that; we were going to my hometown again? "According to the case file, over the last seventeen years, eleven newborn bodies have been found across the US. They all shared a similar modus operandi around the killings and disposal methods; each were killed within hours of being born, still attached to their placentas, and were..."

Rossi picked up the manila folder and opened it, eyes scanning the pictures inside as his complexion rapidly turned green. He set the folder back down and looked out the window, away from us all as Emily continued, "... they were all dismembered, legs, arms, and head removed, torso cracked open and heart removed. All were done postmortem."

"Eleven bodies over seventeen years?" JJ breathed. I twisted in my chair; she was eyeing the folder, but didn't reach for it. I couldn't blame her, especially if they held crime scene photos. Henry was still fairly young, after all, "Why didn't the Vegas PD link them together until now?"

Emily reached into another folder, pulling out a photocopied piece of paper, "This was left outside the Vegas FBI field office last week, along with the bodies of two of the newborns. Before this, only one had been found within Vegas PD jurisdiction, and all the others were in varying parts of the US, with no newborn being discovered in the same state twice. Vegas, as of last week, is the only place to have more than one victim discovered."

"What's it say?" Alvez reached across the table for the folder.

Emily yanked down a projector screen and placed the photocopied paper under the light. It looked like a scan, probably of the original that was still in Vegas. The handwriting was impeccable and curving with very elegant scripting;

 _These creatures were not perfect. The mother is perfect, but we have yet to find the perfect father. You have not discovered the link yet because we did not desire it, but in light of these failures we have decided to nudge you in the right direction. Eleven creatures you now have, nine before plus these two here, all connected through blood. Soon, a twelfth will join them, as we already know that it is not the child we must create. Scan their blood, you will see the connection._ _Alaska, Oregon, Texas, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Florida, South Dakota, Hawaii, and Tennessee are where the others are._ _You have until her due date come June to save the twelfth creature. You will not, but you have until then. We suggest you call in all your resources. We will be in touch._

"Scan their blood?" My brow furrowed, "Did they run a DNA test on the bodies?"

"After the two were found outside the field office, yes," Emily said, "The test matched five already in the victim database, and using the clues in the note, the field office and Vegas PD quickly found files on the other four. And... all eleven tested positive for an overdose of morphine, as well as..." Her gaze slid to the box of files, looking thoroughly disturbed, "... all eleven newborns were born of the same mother. Each had a different father, but using DNA taken from the bodies and tissues and blood from those with intact placenta, they all matched the same woman."

"The unsub?" Alvez said.

"Not likely," I cut in before Emily could, "The note mentioned 'her', as in 'her due date', and 'the mother is perfect'. She may be a captive, or somehow under the sway of this person."

"For seventeen years, though?" Alvez countered, glaring up at the projector as Emily set about putting the screen away and boxing up the manila folders again, "That's a hell of a lot of time to keep a girl captive."

"Jaycee Dugard was kept for eighteen years and two months and gave birth twice during that time," I said.

"She could be an accomplice," Alvez shrugged and leaned back as Emily replaced the box lid.

"For now, we'll operate under that assumption, that there are two unsubs here," Emily patted the top of the box before picking it up, "Wheels up in thirty."

* * *

I only seemed to go home for cases anymore. Sure, there was the odd time I happened to be in town when my mother was lucid and I would go to see her, but I could count the number of times on one hand that I'd gone back to Vegas just to visit since joining the BAU. It helped that we seemed to get called out to Vegas or the surrounding area with a bit more regularity compared to other states or cities, but still. I couldn't help but feel at least a little bad for not visiting more, just like every time we all climbed aboard the plane on the way to a Vegas case.

Emily brought the box of manila folders after telling us that the lionshare of evidence was waiting for us at the Vegas police department. Despite the bodies being found outside the FBI field office there, the Vegas PD were leading the investigation in cooperation with them. Since the two recent bodies, despite being years old and heavily decomposed, were found there, it was as good a place as any to begin. Especially if, as we were assuming due to the contents of the letter, the unsubs were still in the vicinity of Vegas.

As I thumbed through the crime scene photos, they got to be too much for even me. I set them side with a bit more force than necessary, favoring watching the clouds outside instead. The sheer volume of gore and mutilation of the infant corpses reminded me too much of our goriest cases, of the worst and bloodiest of them. The Tribe, cannibals, others still. There was just so much blood in the photos. Newborns generally have about a cup of blood in their body at birth, but from the pictures... it looked like more than that. Granted, each was still covered in the mother's blood and afterbirth, but still. Their chests were pulled open from the front and sides, butterflying each newborn's torso and completely disemboweling them in the process. The few photos that also included intact crime scenes all had a single candle, either put out or melted into a pile, at the feet of the bodies. After so long in the BAU, after so many cases and seeing so many people around me injured - mentally and physically - or killed, it takes a lot to get to me now. But this... this was something else. Something else entirely.

"Disturbing, aren't they?"

I sighed, turning to Rossi as he slid into the seat across from me, "That's an understatement. How you holding up?"

I smiled, just slightly, at his concern. He wasn't Gideon - no one could replace Gideon - but over all these years, Rossi had slowly started to fill the void my mentor left behind. Now that Hotch was gone into witness protection and Emily the new BAU head, he'd taken to that role even more, "Fine. Just tired."

"Headaches again?"

"Yeah," Nightmares too, but I wasn't about to tell him that. They were a constant fixture, as they'd been for years at this point, so I was used to them usually. But this time every year, just like on the anniversary of my kidnapping at the hands of Tobias Henkel or the murder of Maeve, they were just a bit harder to deal with. I saw the sea of blood again, the crudely drawn hieroglyphics on the wall, the bodies on the wall and the chunk of hair on the couch...

"Reid?"

I jumped, "S-sorry, just tired." Before Rossi could say a word, I stretched and stood, heading for the thankfully vacant couch on the other end of the plane, "I think I'll catch a nap before we touch down." He didn't stop me, but I could feel his questioning eyes boring into my back. I wasn't about to answer his unspoken questions. Not now, and not ever, if I had any say. All of them already knew about Tobias, Maeve, my parents, Riley... I wanted to keep something for myself for once.

* * *

By the time we touched down in Vegas and headed to the local PD, it was late in the afternoon. The detective in charge of the case, Maria Williams, led us through the precinct to a room full of boxes. They filled the room, the tables, the tops of file cabinets, all of them. Some held manila folders, like the one back in Quantico, while others were chock full of evidence bags. Against the far wall was a huge dry erase board covered in writing and pictures of the victims and crime scenes.

"These are all the case files, crime scene photos, statements, everything we could gather from all eleven victims," Williams patted the nearest box, "There's been no match for any of the babies, no birth certificates or who the fathers or mother are."

"Fathers?" Alvez took a folder the detective offered.

"They all had the same mother, but no two the same father," Emily muttered, "No two the same father... that would make sense if it was the mother who was one of the unsubs, but..."

"Where would they get the sperm of eleven different men all over the country?" I said.

As we looked through the files and talked to each other, several things became clear. The murders were ritualistic in nature, with each occurring between a year or a year and a half from each other. That made sense since they all shared the same mother; she would need time to recover from the pregnancy and become pregnant again. Each were murdered mere hours after birth, since each still had either the placenta present, or the remains of one. Then a timeline... a timeline...

"The woman is currently pregnant," I said, looking up from a timeline of approximate births and deaths of each victim, "We know that from the message found with the two in front of the precinct. It matches the time of death of the newest of the victims; it was around this time last year."

"What's the date?" Lewis asked.

"May 20th," I answered without looking up from the folders.

"That gives us, what? A month?"

"If that," I said, "The note said _'due date come June'_ not when in June."

"So what're you all thinking?" Williams crossed her arms, eyes narrowing. I knew the look wasn't for us - she stared passed me at the photos on the erase board - but I could see the rage in her eyes, "We've been running around in circles here, and if another baby shows up on the FBI doorstep, or heavens forbid here..."

"This has been going on for nearly two decades," Lewis said, "Was there any difference between the first victim and the latest? Anything at all?"

"None," I flipped open two folders, one with photos of the first, and one with the latest, "They're... identical, in terms of M.O. Placement of the candles, lacerations to the body, all of it. Even after so long, to have no change whatsoever to the murders... and for them to have occurred like clockwork..."

"They have resources, and a lot of them," Lewis added, "The babies were healthy before their murders, well taken care of, so the mother likely was as well."

"What if there was only the one? The mother?" Walker said, "We were thinking two, but think about it; she gets pregnant, carries the child to term, gives birth, then murders them right after."

"The victims were killed right after birth," This time it was JJ who popped up, "Placenta's attached. Now, I don't know if Detective Williams here has children-"

"I do, two of them."

"-but doing that?" JJ pointed at one of the crime scene photos on the board, "Right after giving birth? Not happening. Especially if it's a home birth, which it would have to have been for there to be no records or birth certificates for the children."

Williams left us to the files. We went through them, but there was nothing we didn't already know, nothing we hadn't figured out. It was easy to get frustrated, even if it was still the beginning. Despite the brutality of the victims bodies, the crime scenes were relatively clean and unrelated; a forest, an empty trash can, and alleyway, a broken into hotel room... yet the unsub took the time to set the body flat, and place a candle at the feet. And the mutilation had to have been done before dumping the bodies, since there was no blood found at the scene despite the bodies being completely exsanguinated.

An hour later, there was commotion outside. Before any of us could get to the door, Williams stormed in, brandishing a disc in her hands. She was halfway across the room to the computer at the far side in a flash, "This was just dropped off at the front desk. Some kid said a man paid him a hundred bucks to drop it off."

"What is it?" Lewis asked.

"A video. It came with a note that specifically mentioned the murders," Williams whipped around as the computer kicked to life, her eyes boring right into me, "And Dr. Reid's name was on the disc."

All eyes turned to me, "M-my name?"

Williams nodded and she turned back to the computer, slipping the disc into the CD tray and closing it. I could see the questions on everyone's face, but I just shrugged, perplexed. Why would my name be on the CD? One delivered by some random person along with a note that specifically mentioned this case. When a prompt came up on the screen, Williams first clicked to open the files on the CD. All there was on it was a single .mp4 file, and it took up most of the disc. Williams hesitated over the play key, looking over her shoulders at us.

"Play it," Emily said.

The media player kicked to life and the file began to play. There was a bed, shot from the front. It was lavish and ornate, hand-carved possibly due to how intricate it looked in the high definition footage. It was four poster, curtained, and pulled open. Pillows and fluff covered everything, piling high on the back of the bed, and a dozen blankets half shielded the figure on the bed from view. Most of the room was dark, very dark, save for brilliant lighting from the top of the bed, illuminating all the light colors with an almost eerie glow.

Sitting on the bed was a woman, small, hands resting against a very large, pregnant belly that somehow made her seem even smaller by comparison. She wore a white dress, somewhere between a billowing nightdress and a 16th century chemise. There was much lace around her throat and hands, obscuring them so only the tips of her fingers showed. Her hair shown stark white, long, draped around her like a curtain, covering her shoulders and face as her gaze was held downward by her bulging stomach. I could see chains on her wrists, and two others disappearing beneath the bed. There was something... familiar about her. Something in the back of my mind.

The image went black after a few moments, white words glaring at us from across the page: _'Do you recognize her, Doctor Spencer Reid? Do you recognize the mother? Your own mother did. Do you?'_

As the video of the bed came back, the woman's hands moved. Rubbing her stomach. She looked up, to the side, eyes flickering back and forth. Reading something. Then her eyes, those eyes that, even in the dark, I knew would be a purplish red with an almost blue ring, looked up at us. No, this wasn't possible. Not reddish, not lacking melanin like the hair and that skin, so pale that it glowed in the lights from above. No, no, this wasn't right, it couldn't be right.

I could feel the eyes of Lewis and JJ as the video faded to black again, more words flashing onto the screen: _'Do you recognize her, Spencer?'_

Then the video was back. She'd moved, back straight as she sat on her knees, arms now at her side. Her eyes flickered off screen, reading something again before looking directly at the camera. Directly at me, _"Spence? Spence, it is me. It is-"_

In unison, both the woman on the screen and I said, "Nephi."

I slid down, to my own knees, but was unable to look away from the screen. Her hands rose to rest on her stomach, and her eyes flickered down to the bulge, _"You will not..."_ Then her head shot up, eyes pleading someone off screen. Then, her eyes widened and fell, downcast. Whatever question she'd been silently asking, she'd gotten a no. She gulped, fingers clenching over her stomach, _"You will not save this baby-"_ Something crashed, and another person screamed behind the camera, and the video jump cut. She was still in the same place, put one hand was up against her collarbone, _"You will not save this... creature. But... but please... please find me."_ She looked up, eyes once again pleading through the camera, _"Please find me, Spencer."_

* * *

"Her name is... Nephilim Christenson," I swallowed thickly. The video had long since finished, and everyone was looking at me expectantly. But it took exactly five minutes, forty-one seconds before I could articulate it. It's been seventeen years since I'd seen her... "It was just after my first year at Caltech; I was here in Vegas during vacation, taking some classes online over the summer. Our parents were colleagues, and when I was very young, my mother and her's set up play dates for us. She's two years younger than me. About halfway through the summer, she... I thought she was killed."

I could see it in my mind, even as the words came out. Knocking on the front door, but finding it creaking open instead, "I went inside. I was... Nephi and I were going to hang out. I was tutoring her on math, she was never very good at it. But, the door was open. I found her parents inside." Their bodies, mangled and bloodied, strung up against the wall. Hieroglyphics, written in their blood, across the top of the mantle. And candles, the flames long since snuffed by the blood dripping off their feet onto the wicks, "... they were dead, and Nephilim missing. I was... interviewed, of course, but they never found her. The trail went cold."

I felt a strange numbness settle over me then, as I sat limp in the meeting room chair, surrounded by boxes full of the pictures and evidence of eleven dead newborns. In the video, she'd been pregnant. These were her children. Eleven, over seventeen years... and a twelfth on the way, "She was assumed to be dead after a while. No note, no more bodies found, no prints or hairs or anything at the scene." I laughed once, a mirthless and dead sound, "I was considering science as a major at that point, Biology specifically. Then medical school, to get an MD/PhD and go into medical research. I wanted to study genetic illnesses..." I rubbed my mouth with a hand, feeling tears at the back of my eyes, "She was always sick. Her hair, skin, you can't see it in the video but her eyes show an obvious lack of melanin."

"What is she, albino?" Alvez said, earning a withering glare from JJ, who'd taken a spot next to me. I could feel her calming hand on my shoulder.

"She has Type 3 Hermansky-Pudlak Syndrome," There we go, Reid. Right back into what you do best; reciting data and facts, "It's an autosomal recessive condition characterized by albinism of the eyes, skin, and hair as well as reduced vision, sensitivity to light, among other things. Patients have problems with blood clotting, easily bruise, and tend to have prolonged bleeding when they do, and some develop breathing problems later in life and are diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. Less commonly, they develop inflammation of the large intestine and kidney failure. They're also at an above average risk for skin damage and skin cancers as well."

"And she's still alive?" Alvez said, "After all these years?"

"It's happened," Rossi said.

My fists clenched, unclenched, then clenched again. Seventeen years. She's been missing for seventeen years. To find out, after all this time, that she was alive... I didn't know what to feel. There was happiness, deep set in my chest, but a heavy knot of disgust in my stomach. And guilt, so much guilt. That I was here and she was not. What had happened to her in all that time? What horrors had whoever took her done? Had she been sold into sexual slavery, and been bought by this unsub? That would explain the pregnancy, but not the fact that candles were similarly placed at her parents death and the newborns. Twelve total newborns, each from a different father... how many times? How many times did her captor let others rape her? How many times did she scream, did she fight, before giving up? Giving up like I'd given up on her.

"The Christenson case..." Williams eyed me, expression half cop, half pitying, "I'll... go pull the files. Should be in storage with the other Vegas cold cases."

"I'll go with you," Walker said after exchanging a look with Emily. The detective nodded, and they left.

JJ's hand on my shoulder squeezed, but I couldn't look at her, "We'll find her, Spence."

Was she even the same girl anymore? She'd been gone more years than I'd known her, more than she'd been alive at that point... And in a case like this, I couldn't even begin to hope. My psyche couldn't afford it. My god, she was _pregnant_ , had been multiple times, by twelve different men. My memory, my _damn_ memory, remembered her smiling. Whenever she needed to go for a check-up, or got some infection, I would come over with soup afterwards. Soup and crackers, both homemade by my mother, sometimes with a chess set or some board game to play with her. I knew this girl, I _knew_ her...

"What changed?" I muttered, not seeing my coworkers but _through_ them, to the boxes, to the case, "Seventeen years, why now? The unsub has had her so long, so why..." I swallowed, brow furrowing, "Why involve me now? Why dress up two other bodies outside the precinct here when there's only been one Vegas case before? And... and the CD, the CD, he's... it was on purpose. He _knew_ leaving those bodies would call us here, he _knew_ that leaving this CD would effect me, he-"

"Spence, I-"

JJ moved half in front of me, but I was faster. I jumped to my feet, eyes wide and with a cold shooting through my veins. I could feel my face grow cold, pale, as the words on that screen shot through me. I couldn't forget them, my cursed mind wouldn't let me.

 _'Your own mother did.'_

"My mother," I breathed, halfway to the door before I could even think, "He knows my mother."

* * *

 **Author's Note:** DUN DUN DUN, see it may be a rewrite, but I'm changin' a lotta stuffs :D


	3. Breadcrumbs

**Disclaimer:** Y'all know this.

* * *

Chapter Two

 **Breadcrumbs**

 _"I wasn't planning to lead, I was standing in the back and then everyone turned around."_

 _\- Avery Hiebert_

* * *

I didn't calm down until I saw her, sitting in that same spot as nearly every other time I'd come to Vegas to see her, whether from a case or not. The staff said that no one had visited her that day, but they would look into the records and pull any on visits to Diana Reid since my last one. I stood in the sanitarium, rubbing my chin with one hand while rapidly clenching and unclenching the other. Lewis was with me, while the rest were running through the evidence to compile the profile, or running down leads at the local sperm bank.

The nurse in charge, a small old woman named Yuiko Ajibana, knocked on the entryway. I jumped, tearing my eyes from my mother. The nurse was my savior; Lewis had been egging me to cross the large room to talk to my mother. Ajibana handed me a clipboard with some pieces of paper on it, "Dr. Reid, Dr. Lewis, this is the sign in sheets for everyone visiting Diana Reid in the last six months."

I winced. Hearing out loud how long it'd been since I'd last seen my mother was... off putting, to say the least. My eyes scanned the list, flipping through the pages, and within a few seconds I had all the information on them memorized.

"I'll never get used to watching you do that," Lewis chuckled.

I frowned. Most of them I recognized; old colleagues and friends, distant family, even a couple by my father. But my eyes zeroed on two, who signed in together multiple times in the last year. One of them... one of them I knew, "Peter Johnson and..." My gaze snapped up, "Elle Greenaway?!"

"Do you know them, Reid?" Lewis peeked over my shoulder, and I offered her the list.

"She... she was a member of the BAU a long time ago, before even Emily joined the team," I flipped open my phone, brow furrowed, and dialed quickly.

 _"Office of unmitigated brilliance."_

"Garcia, I need the last known location of Elle Greenaway," My gaze flickered between Lewis and my mother. What was Elle doing here? Why was she visiting my mother?

 _"Wait, Elle? Genius boy, it's been-"_

"Her name is on the sign in sheet for my mother's sanitarium, Penelope," I tried to keep the panic from my voice, and swallowed thickly after catching the look on Lewis's face, "Please."

 _"On it."_

The line clicked dead and Lewis said, "Do you want to take a minute, Reid? I can talk to your mom."

"No, no," I shook my head and started towards my mom. Yet I stopped, and turned back to Lewis with a wry smile, "... but I wouldn't mind the company."

She smiled back, reassuring, and followed me to the couch next to my mother's seat. Mom started a bit, doing a double take when she saw me. Then it happened, just like the last few times. The unsure glance, a slight crinkling of the brow. Jaw slack with confusion. She had no idea who I was.

Then the look vanished as realization dawned, and she smiled, "Spencer."

"Hey, uh... hey mom," I slid into the spot on the couch nearest to her, Lewis taking the one further down, "How're you feeling?"

"I was reading your latest letter," She thumbed the paper in her hands, the smile widening just a fraction. Mom folded it gently before placing it back into the envelope on her lap. She was calm, smiling... healthy. It was one of her better days. Mom's eyes slid from the paper, passed me, to Lewis, "Are you going to introduce me to your friend, Spencer?"

"Yeah, um..." I looked back at Lewis, "This is Doctor Tara Lewis, she's um... one of my-"

"Your coworkers at the BAU, yes," Mom said, her eyes sweeping over Lewis with the kind of narrow precision that was rare these days. Taking in all the details, memorizing them. Not unlike me, "Spencer started writing about you in his letters not long ago. Another doctor on his team... in psychology, no less."

"Yes ma'am."

"It fits."

"Mom-"

"This isn't a visit, is it Spencer?" Mom's smile faltered somewhat. Her eyes flashed, first to Lewis, then just back to Ajibana where the nurse hovered just out of earshot, "You've always come alone when visiting."

I tried to start, but my throat was dry. So I swallowed thickly, thinking back to the list, "Years ago, I had a coworker named Elle Greenaway. I wrote to you about her; do you remember?"

"Yes... the girl who was shot, who then left not long after," Mom tapped her knee with my letter.

"She came to see you, didn't she? Has for a year now, along with a man... a man named Peter Johnson," She was my mother. Why was it so hard to speak to my own mother?

"Peter? A nice man. He was writing a book about... something," Her brow furrowed, then widened just a bit before settling into a smile, "Ah yes, it was on the use of mental illness in classic literature. We had lovely talks about literature, him along with his wife."

"Elle? Mom, was Elle his... wife?"

Mom's brow furrowed, confusion growing on her face, "No, it wasn't your coworker, Spencer. Peter never called her his wife, but I could tell. Called her his angel, and the last few times I've seen them, she was pregnant." She smiled, fondly, though her eyes seemed to glaze somewhat. I could feel this lucid moment of my mother's slipping away, "She had... white hair, like Annabel's daughter... what was her name...?"

Annabel Christenson, mother of Nephilim. Using the name of a supposedly dead person could have raised red flags, so he used the name of someone else. Someone I knew. But he would have needed to show ID, so how...?

"Now what was her name-" My mother looked at me, eyes narrowing, jaw slack like she was halfway through a thought when it was suddenly cut off, "Her name... son?"

She'd forgotten my name. Oh god, _she'd forgotten my name_. I leaped to my feet, mumbling excuses to Ajibana, and hurried out of the reading room. Lewis was hot on my heels, but I didn't stop until the front entrance hall of the sanitarium. I paced between two pillars, hand over my mouth as I felt pile rise in my throat. Nephilim had been here, seen my mother, and it had to have been recent because Mom had specifically mentioned pregnancy. She'd been here with a man under the pretense of writing a book to what? Grill my mother for information on me? Did she tell him anything? My eyes swept the hall, trying to envision it. Her, walking through the doors, probably with sunglasses so the light from outside didn't blind her. Holding her pregnant belly like in the video, probably sticking close to the man who took her. Probably sticking close to the unsub. If she'd been with him for seventeen years, Stockholm Syndrome was just about a certainty...

"Th-these places have cameras, especially at the entrance," My words were going a mile a minute, stopping dead in my tracks as I rounded on a bewildered Lewis, "The date of the last visit was a week ago. If they still have the footage, then we can... we can get video of the unsub and Nephilim."

"Reid-"

"Williams is going through the Christenson case file with Walker," I needed to see those files to. The unsub was leading us - leading me - to something, but what? After so long, why taunt the police now? Why lead me out here, why use Elle as an alias? "I-I have to see the case file..."

"Reid-"

"But why now? Why after so long-"

"Reid!" Lewis yanked me back to reality, jerking on my sleeve to get my attention. Concern was etched on her face, and she dropped my arm quickly, "Calm down. Think it through."

I swallowed back a retort, grimacing as the rest of the entryway came back into focus. A few of the visitors checking in were staring at us, but once I caught their eyes their own darted away. I closed my eyes and took one deep breath before looking over at Lewis, "... sorry."

"It's getting to you, isn't it?" Lewis said as we left the building, "Reid, are you sure you should-"

"Yes," She didn't need to finish. There was no way I was stepping off this case, not now. And from her half-hearted tone of voice, she knew that.

Lewis smiled in a kind of tired, knowing way, "So we go back in there, request a look at those tapes, and make sure that the staff knows to call us the second anyone with either the name Peter Johnson or Elle Greenaway shows up here. Alright?"

"Yeah," I forced a smile that quickly fell. With that, Lewis and I headed back inside and I apologized to Ajibana, "Sorry about that, um... would it be possible to see any security footage you have of last week at the times Peter Johnson and Elle Greenaway signed in to see my mother?"

"Sure, this way," Ajibana led us through the sanitarium to the security office. Inside was quite a few monitors; if I had to guess, I'd say they were probably about a quarter compared to the number of cameras in the sanitarium. Every few seconds, the scene on one monitor would cut out to show a different camera.

"Ah... the entrance, please," I tore myself from the monitors, "The sign in sheet said they last came in on Tuesday at 2:15pm. Try then first, please."

The security guard, a portly man with a nametag saying 'Eiselstein' raised an eyebrow, shooting a look first as me, then Ajibana. The nurse nodded, and only then did the guard start rifling through the footage backlog, "You're lucky, doctor. We only keep security footage records going back about a week. This one would've been overwritten tonight." He pulled out a CD and slipped it into the only computer not connected to the mess of security monitors. The screen flickered to life, and soon the footage played. It was choppy, more series of still photos than fluid video, "Advance it to about 2:10pm, if you can."

The guard grunted and shifted the video forward. I watched, eyes steadily narrowing, only seeing the image on the monitor. I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath until I gasped, "There!" I lunged forward, hitting the pause before the security guard could even flinch. On the screen, clear as day, was Nephilim, just as she'd appeared in the video at the station. Even in the grainy security cam footage, I could see her hands resting against the sizable bump on her stomach. And next to her, arm around her shoulders, was a tall man. He was turned away from the screen, wearing a trilby that cast a shadow over his face from this angle. I cursed; of course it wouldn't be so easy to get footage of his face.

"Is this all the footage from that day, from all the cameras?" The guard nodded, looking at bit miffed as I leaned back from the monitor, "We'll need copies when can send to our technical analyst in Quantico."

"You can just take these if you want," The guard replaced the CD in its case and handed it to Lewis after shooting me another look. What was his problem? "We were going to rewrite them, anyway."

"Thank you," Lewis took the case with a smile. As we left the sanitarium, she looked sideways at me, "Reid, are you _sure_ you're okay?"

"Yes," I said through clenched teeth. I really wished she wouldn't keep asking that, "Why?"

"You're pale; you look like a ghost, Reid," We got into the car and she started it, "You know that if I'm noticing, Prentiss is."

She didn't need to say that. I already knew it. So I didn't answer, and Lewis didn't push me. As we drove, something began to bug me. I fished my phone out of my pocket and dialed Garcia. After a half dozen rings, it went to voicemail. I tried again, got the same thing, and left behind a message, "Garcia, call me when you get this. I need that information about Elle."

"Not picking up?"

I shook my head, glaring down at me phone. It was odd; something like looking up a former FBI agent should be simple, especially for someone of Garcia's ability. I sighed and called Emily instead, who actually did pick up, _"Prentiss here. Is your mom alright?"_

"She's fine, but..." I told her everything we found out, about the unsub and Nephilim visiting her, and that's probably how they found out so much about me. Once again, my mother was the leak, just like with the Fisher King. I couldn't help the grimace.

 _"We'll make sure Mrs. Reid has extra protection, Spencer,"_ Emily said, _"Bring the CDs to the precinct; we'll get the footage to Garcia for analysis."_

"Yeah, sure, um..." I hesitated. Maybe it was nothing, but... "I tried calling Garcia, but she's not picking up. All I asked her was to look up Elle; you'd think she'd get back to me quick."

 _"Yeah... I'll try her from the precinct."_

"Thanks, Emily."

* * *

When we got there, Garcia still wasn't picking up, and everyone was notified and had returned to the precinct. As Lewis and I walked into the room Williams gave us for congregating, JJ looked up from her stack of papers, phone clutched like a vice on her hand, "No word from Garcia. I just sent someone else to go check on her."

"Could she have been attacked?" Lewis said as she took a spot beside the blonde.

"Unlikely," I didn't sit, instead pacing in front of the board where we'd taped pictures and info of each of the victims, "The BAU is in the middle of FBI headquarters."

"Still..." Lewis frowned, "Any word from the others, JJ?"

"Emily and Rossi are finishing up at the local sperm bank now, and Williams, Walker, and Alvez are bringing the rest of..." She gestured to a pile of boxes, considerably older than the newborn case, "... These. They're from the Christenson murder case."

A cold case. That's why the box was so old. It had been stuffed in a corner somewhere, forgotten. Just like Nephilim's herself. My hands clenched and I strode to those boxes, intent to see just what the detectives had seventeen years ago, when the phone in JJ's hand went off.

"Jareau," Her expression slowly furrowed, and a few times she seemed to try interrupting whomever was on the other end, "Ok-w-wait, Garcia I-... Hold on, hold on Garcia I'll put you on speaker." She set the cell down and pressed it just as Williams, Walker, and Alvez entered behind me.

 _"Someone hacked me!"_

Her voice was strained, stuttering a but at the ends of words. I could already see her face; eyes a little wide, a bit paler than normal. I leaned forward, both palms on the table, "Who hacked you?"

 _"E-Elle's name was a... a trigger or something. The second I put it into the system, **boom**!"_ Something slammed on the other end, probably the desk when Garcia smacked it out of frustration, _"Something activated in the system and started transmitting information... Somewhere!"_

"Information? What information, Garcia?"

 _"Um... um, I can't tell until I get back into the system,"_ Garcia was less frantic now, her tone slowly calming, _"I've been trying for an hour already; it'll be a bit before I can get back in. But whatever they took, it was waiting for me to look up Elle in the system, so..."_

"It's involved with the case here," We would have had no reason to look up Elle in the system without this case and that security footage. There would have been no reason to have that security footage if the unsub hadn't taken Nephilim to see my mother. And there have been no reason to check on my mother without that note, addressed to me specifically, "He's leading us."

"What?" Lewis asked.

"The unsub is leading us, playing with us," I eyed the CD case on the table. The one with my name on it, "Planting the bodies outside the FBI field office, not the local precinct, getting some kid to hand deliver a CD with my name on it, specifically mentioning my mother _knowing_ I would go to her, knowing I would look up the records and find Elle's name, and _knew_ I would ask Garcia to look into Elle's whereabouts."

"What're you saying?" Williams asked. I jumped, having nearly forgotten the detective was there. Her eyes were narrowed, arms crossed, "That this sick freak what, wants you here? You _specifically_ , Doctor?"

"Oh god..." JJ's hand flew to her throat, eyes wide. She snatched her phone off the table, "I'm calling Emily. We need her back here as soon as possible."

"Wait, wait, JJ," I held up both hands. She shot me a look and I sputtered, "I-I'm not gonna tell you _not_ to call Emily, JJ. Just... let me think." She froze, hand hovering over what I assumed was the call button. My mind was going a million miles a minute. He was taunting us, taunting me, and would probably send us another breadcrumb soon enough. Somehow planted something in the FBI computers at Quantico that was only triggered by Elle's name, meaning that there's something behind Elle, but it wouldn't be safe to look her up here... if the unsub was thorough enough to plant a virus possibly months in advance, they probably did here, so... "We-we need ah, ah computer. Williams, do you-do you have a personal laptop? Something that's not connected to the databases here?"

"Yeah, my VAIO, why?"

"There's a coffee shop around the corner," I stood, mind still going a mile a minute, but a clear line shining through. What we can do to get ahead, "Take your most tech savvy person there, hook them up to the internet at the coffee shop, and get all the recent information you can on Elle Greenaway. Make calls, make inquiries, but _don't_ use any official internet hookups, wireless, systems or databases."

"Reid?" Lewis leaned over a bit to catch my eye, "What're you thinking?"

"Garcia's system went down when she tried to look up Elle in Quantico. If the unsub was leading us here for a reason, leading _me_ here for a reason, then it's not that much of a stretch to assume some worm or virus is in the computers here too," The chair screeched with how quickly I stood, "We can't wait for the next clue in this sick _freak's_ game. We-we have to get ahead of him. We _have_ to-"

"Spence-"

"He has my best friend, JJ!" I rounded on her, half shouting in frustration, and running a hand through my hair as I tried and failed to stay calm, "He's had her for _seventeen years_ doing _sick_ things to her, forcing her to get pregnant over and over by _different men_ and..." Just like that, it all reached a peak. I slumped into the chair again, feeling suddenly drained. Drained and just... tired, "... and I gave up on her."

"I'll help you get something set up at the coffee shop," Walker said. Williams shot me a look I couldn't - and wouldn't - try and decipher before leaving with him.

JJ walked around the table and knelt down in front of me. I couldn't look at her, but she leaned over until I was forced to look at her, "Spence, this isn't your fault. This isn't."

"Isn't it though?" Tears blurred my vision, so I covered my eyes with a hand, "When her case went cold, I didn't... I didn't follow up on it or anything. I told myself she was dead. There's no way she could still be alive after so long, especially with the medication she needs to stay healthy..."

"Spence, you were just a kid," JJ reached up and smoothed back my hair.

She was right and I knew it, but it did nothing to make me feel better. But I let her smooth back my hair anyway, taking some solace in it as the others moved around us. Lewis went for the Christenson file while JJ left Alvez to make the phone call to Emily and Rossi. JJ patted my knee and stood, "Come on, Spence. Let's go for a walk."

I didn't put up a fight as JJ led me from the meeting room. I didn't really see the precinct as we walked, didn't see the officers or anything else until a blast of fresh air hit my face. JJ brought me outside, the hustle and bustle of Vegas around us a buffer to my chaotic thoughts, "... sorry JJ, I... well, it's just hard, you know?"

"I know, Spence, I know," JJ sighed, "I already know your answer to this, but are you sure you-"

"Don't tell Emily to take me off the case, JJ..." I said, "... please. I can't. Knowing that she's alive out there..."

"Okay, Spence," She put a hand on my arm, a strained smile on her lips, "But I'm here if you want to talk."

She turned to leave, probably to give me a moment outside, but the tenseness in my chest, the unshed tears in my eyes... "She was going to be my first kiss."

JJ chuckled a bit at that, "I thought Lila was."

"Lila was my... actual first kiss, but Nephi..." I laughed once, a bubble of happiness at the memory. Visiting her, clutching my acceptance letter from CalTech in my hands, all smiles from us both and cookies from her mother, "Nephilim promised me she'd, uh... give me my first kiss when I showed her my first degree." I didn't blush at the memory, but I did smile. With my eidetic memory, I could remember it all. Every detail of it. It was a happy memory.

"Did she now?" JJ put a hand on my shoulder, her thumb rubbing comforting circles here, "We'll find her, Spence. We will."

* * *

It was dark by the time everything was set up and explained to the poor coffee shop across the street and Williams and Walker managed to gather everything they could with the limited resources. Emily and Rossi returned, and while she didn't say anything, I could see it on Emily's face. She was worried about me. They hadn't found anything suspicious at the sperm bank, which threw another layer on the whole case. With twelve different fathers, it could be a case of... a case of forced prostitution, but the footage sent to me didn't point to that. The wording, about her being 'the mother', and dragging us all into the case in the first place, just didn't make any sense.

"Elle Greenaway just about fell off the grid when she left the BAU," Walker said as he came in with Williams, carrying a stack of papers in his arms, "She has a cabin in the woods a ways outside Seattle, Washington. We've contacted the Seattle PD to look into her cabin, but won't hear back for a while yet. Other than that, she doesn't really have any social media, nothing."

"Bank accounts, jobs, anything?"

"Not that we can find without trying our own databases, or with Garcia down," Walker shrugged.

A cop poked his head through the door, "Penelope Garcia from Quantico, on line two."

"Speak of the devil," Emily muttered as Williams reached over to push a button on the phone.

 _"I've managed to get some limited functionality back into the system,"_ Garcia said, stress thick in her voice, _"This jerk though, he's smart. Really smart. He hacked my system, but get this. He copied everything. Everything he could get his hands on."_

"Hiding what he was really after," Alvez said.

 _"Exactly, but the thing is, he left something behind."_

I gritted my teeth, "The next breadcrumb."

 _"Just that, pretty boy. Another video, addressed to you."_

My hands clenched at the chair, knuckles white as I breathed, "Have you... have you watched it?"

 _"No, I um... figured you'd want to."_ There was some typing, then my phone went off, _"There you go, Spencer."_

She didn't send it to the precinct, or to Emily. She sent it to me, "... thanks, Penelope."

 _"No thanks necessary. I'm gonna... try and get the rest of this working and see what I can get on Elle."_

"Garcia," Emily said, stopping the analyst from hanging up, "Focus on Seattle, Washington and the outlying areas. Greenaway had a cabin out there."

 _"On it. If Elle had a coffee at a Starbucks last Thursday, I'll know about it. No one messes with my baby and gets away with it."_

The line clicked dead and William's brow rose, "Her baby? That's one strange techie you've got there."

"That's Garcia. Her computers are her life," Emily said, tone trying hard to be jovial but her eyes zeroed on me with something akin to pity, "Reid, your phone."

"... right," I flipped it open, and sure enough, there was an email from Garcia. An email with one attachment, another .mp4 file. Williams helped me log in to my email from their computer and download the file in short order.

As she hit play, I braced myself in the seat closest to the monitor. The scene was the same from before. The same too-fluffy bed, covered in pillows and lace. The same lighting from the canopy, bathing the whole bed in a glow. This time, it was empty, but not for long. Slowly, Nephilim came into frame, half obscured by darkness on the right side of the bed. She crawled into the blankets and pillows, helped along by a hand in hers. She did not smile, she did not look back at him, and once in her spot, the figure leaned forward. He was dressed smartly; dark business suit, white button-down, tie, all of it. He no hat like in the security cam footage, but slicked back, dark hair with a blank white, featureless mask over his face.

 _"By now, you've talked to your mother. Soon Ms. Garcia will uncover everything you haven't about Ms. Greenaway,"_ The bastard reached over and ran a hand through Nephilim's long, long hair. She didn't even flinch, _"Soon the failure will be born and disposed of, because we cannot have failures, can we my angel?"_ Nephilim shook her head, once more without expression or feeling in her face. He was using some sort of voice modulator, _"Then her holy body will be empty, ready for the seed of a new father. The one my flock and I have been waiting for."_ I felt my blood turn to ice as his words sank in. It was a promise, and through the voice modulation, I could almost _feel_ the smile in that bastard's voice.

He moved then, pulling chains from the edges of the bed and securing them around Nephilim's wrist and ankles before pulling the blankets up to her round belly. She didn't fight, didn't flinch, nothing. Like a living doll. The man slunk across the bed, blocking Nephilim from view as he took up most of the frame in front of it, _"For your associates, Spencer, I warn them; do not take the good doctor off the case. If you do, it is not Nephilim's life who is in danger."_ The man snapped his fingers and the room was suddenly bathed in light. Two other figures, dressed in black, came into frame, dragging a third. The third was bedraggled, tossed to the floor at the first man's feet.

"A hostage," Lewis said, and I didn't need to look back to know her eyes were wide. Staring at the screen, like mine. I couldn't look away from the monitor.

The woman - I could tell it was a woman from her build and long hair - was panting at his feet. Her arms were bare and she was dressed in a torn t-shirt and shorts. Even in the footage I could see the cuts and bruises along every inch of bare skin. Then she whipped her head up, half-snarling at the unsub with a glare that promised murder. Then she whipped her head to the camera.

 _"He's using me a bait, Spencer,"_ said Elle Greenaway, eyes alight despite her obvious pain, _"Don't need a priest to see tha-"_

The unsub slapped her, open hand, and Elle fell to the ground with a grunt. The other two dragged her off, and the thin, injured Elle tried to shake them off, earning her another smack. The unsub shifted, hand under his chin and the mask. After Elle was gone, he addressed the screen again, _"If the doctor leaves the case, she dies. If he is sidelined at all, she dies. If we had known the young Spencer Reid would grow to be so... accomplished... we would have taken them both back then. But the past is the past, and we have spent a long time setting up for your arrival, Spencer Reid. Now run along, chase down your errant Elle. May God guide your steps."_

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Well, y'all probably saw that coming if you've read the original, though I HAVE changed a lot of the story, hmm? Also, it's like... 3am and I am tired. Goodnight! :D


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